Wholesale Markets 12/20/2021 Compiled by Jeffrey Bellant
MICHIGAN Greg Price, owner/operator, Fastlane Auto Exchange, Flint, Mich. “We are in our fourth year, as Fastlane, but the auction itself has been here 40 years. “We’ve got eight lanes and we’re currently running six lanes. We’ve been averaging 650 to 700 units every week for probably all year. We really haven’t seen a dip. “We’re probably 90% dealer, 10% fleet/lease. “But we also do a lot of Canadian business, which is about 40% of our business. That’s the big plus. Our Canadian consignment hasn’t decreased at all, so that’s a big plus. That’s been fortunate for us. Also, they just opened the border up so dealers/sellers can come over. As far as the cars coming over, that was never shut down since we were an essential business.
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“We average about 350-355 dealers in-lane and about 185 online. That’s one dealer for every two cars. We’re averaging 64-68% (conversion rates). “From what I’ve been hearing from the dealers just recently is that the retail side has slowed down just a tick. The price seems to be leveling a bit. “Some later-model stuff doesn’t seem to be selling at the higher price that it was 30 days ago. But the $10,000-and-under cars are still pretty steady. I think a lot of guys still anticipate a strong tax season. I don’t know, though. It seems like we’ve been in a tax season all of 2021. “Dealers are being very cautious with what they’re buying now, more so than 30 days ago. If the market takes a shift, they’re nervous they’ll be stuck with this in-
ventory that depreciates 3040% overnight. “Our current price in the lanes is $8,000 to $9,200. “Pre-COVID we were at about $6,500. “My gut tells me we’re going to be pretty steady going into next year. When chips come in and I don’t have any inside information – I still think it’s going to be more like a trickle than a flood.”
WASHINGTON David Blake, general manager, DAA Seattle, Auburn, Wash. “We’ve been in business nine years; it will be 10 years in May. We have five lanes. “Our regular physical sale is Fridays. We ran about 700 at a recent sale, which was a promo week. So, volume levels are not where they were. That’s just a reality of the industry. “We also run a Wednesday
sale that’s completely digital on our EBlock platform, which is our MAG Now sale. We run about 50 units on that weekly. “In the Friday sale, 70% of those sales still take place online. For a recent physical sale, we had 500 bidders, with 120 of those in-lane. “We’ve always had a solid online presence. We’ve been writing CRs on vehicles on this company for over the last 10 years. That’s why the adjustment to being able to provide CRs for online purchasing on the digital platform was a reasonably easy – though I wouldn’t say comfortable – transition. “(In the physical sales) I think it’s just a surprise to some of the dealers about where the values actually are, what they’re paying. But that’s the demand and where the prices are right now. There are challenges in
delays in parts, for example, but people understand that these are some of the dynamics we’re dealing with. “It’s nice having the physical lanes open because you can connect with people and our customers. “We have a Motorsports sale the third or fourth Wednesday every month. We have Harley-Davidson as a manufacturer account. In some ways, that inventory is even leaner. “We run 25 to 35 units of Harley-Davison product. We’ll also have some dirt bikes, some side-by-side, some off-road vehicles and a few boats that trickle in. “I think next year will kind of look like this year, but not enough of an increase (in volume) to make a major impact. I think there will just be a trickle effect, but it takes a while to get the pumps primed again.”